Hi everyone! How are you doing?

I am Hiroko Otsubo, also known as “Chubo”. I work as a facilitator in Kyoto University. I love traveling abroad, especially to developing countries. It’s been more than one year since I started volunteering for Pangaea.
Kadoppe-san introduced me to Pangaea because I was looking for a volunteer job relating with children.
I remember that even though I don’t know much about network technology, I had a good impression when I heard about Pangaea for the first time.
There are many kinds of other activities, such as playing with children and helping their study. But I was attracted by Pangaea because they are trying for world peace with a global outlook, cooperating with a lot of people such as facilitators and technical staffs, and more than anything I just felt it would be fun!
Even though anti-discrimination activities are getting more active all around the world, we haven’t been able to abolish it yet.
We understand that discrimination is wrong, however we unconsciously tend to have bias and prejudice. Therefore it is very important to establish relationships with people from other countries beginning as children, like Pangaea offers in their activities.

The most appealing thing in Pangaea for me is to be able to see how children are delightful during an activity. I see: nervous yet excited, leadership and helpful explanation of things to younger kids, being pleased to show me things they made with their best effort, consideration from other country’s children with respect of other culture and values, happily telling other children about responses from abroad with their bright eyes and so on.

I meet children just once a month, so I found that they are growing up so fast. Each child has a totally different personality.　I look forward to seeing lovely children every month!

Hiroko Otsubo
Kobe City University of Foreign Studies
Division of International Relations